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BERRY HILL
PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY
ERRY HILL, Pittsylvania County, is one of the
Colonial places of Virginia, probably the oldest
place equally far inland. It was the home of the
Hairston family, who originally inherited it from
the Perkins’, into which family the Hairstons’
ancestors married. It has never been sold, but has
passed down from the original grant from the King of England
only by successive wills for about three hundred years, and 1s now
the property of Mrs. Ruth Hairston Sims, who inherited it from
her great-grandmother. It is located on Dan River, in Pittsyl¬
vania County, Virginia, and Rockingham County, North Carolina,
and happens to be at the point where the Colonial army, under
General Greene, crossed this river in his famous strategic retreat
before the army of General Cornwallis after the battle of Guil¬
ford Courthouse.
After effecting the crossing of Dan River under great difficulty,
General Greené camped his army on the river bank, where he pre¬
pared to, and did, offer resistance to his pursuers. Lhe heavy
rains under which this crossing was effected caused the river to rise
abnormally and cover the extensive bottom lands, forcing General
Greene’s army to move back on the flat land. Cornwallis’ forces
drew up on the bluff on the right, or south, bank of Dan River,
from where his artillery opened fire. he Berry Hill house, in
which General Greene had taken up his headquarters, overlooked
this crossing and battlefield, and in the cannonading the old outside
chimney that served General Greene’s room was struck but not
wholly destroyed, and was later successfully repaired.
There has been some controversy as to the exact spot on Dan
River at which General Greene’s crossing was effected, but this was
finally settled in 1896 when the unprecedented severe freshet
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